an account of the grounds and principles of the Christian religion that strangely surprised me to hear it."1

There were also a number of parish libraries in the province during this period, sent over by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for the use of its missionaries. The first of these had been sent as early as 1700 at the instance of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bray, who had come out as commissary of the Bishop of London in Maryland. It was established at Bath, and was worth £100. The law of 1715 made for the protection of this library is one of the earliest specimens of library legislation within the limits of the present United States.2

Other missionaries, Adams, Urmstone, and Rainsford, had libraries, and these served, no doubt, as a nucleus around which was gathered the literary and educational life of the colony, for we have already seen that these missionaries served also as school-teachers.

A notable effort to encourage popular education was made by Edward Moseley in 1723. In 1720 he sent a letter to the secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, with £10 for buying religious books to be loaned to the parishioners of Chowan County. In 1723 he sent to the secretary "a catalogue of such books as he had purchased, desiring the honorable society would be pleased to accept them toward a provincial library for the government of North Carolina, to be kept at Edenton." This catalogue has been preserved. It mentions 26 folio, 12 quarto, and 28 octavo volumes. The books were largely theological and scholastic in character and mostly in Latin and Greek. They had probably been gathered together in America and seem to have come from some of the parish libraries that were scattered from time to time. There is, unfortunately, no evidence that the library was accepted by the society, or that it was ever opened in Edenton. But the size of the library and the value of its books indicate that Moseley was a broadminded and liberal man.

This is all the information we have regarding schools and libraries under the proprietors. This side of colonial life was shamefully neglected by them. They cared neither for the spiritual nor the intellectual man. They reckoned the lives of the colonists only in quitrents and taxes. With the neglect of education went the higher intellectual elements depending upon it.3

III. THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION, 1729–1776.

There was little change in matters of education during the first twenty years of royal rule. In his address to the legislature in 1736 Governor Johnston urged the establishment of schools. That body made a fair reply, but nothing was done.+ The colony did not at that time have either a printing press or a printed revisal of its laws."

In 1745 some progress was made in school legislation. On April 15, Mr. Craven brought in a bill "to Impower the Commissioners for the town of Edenton to keep in repair the Town fence, & to erect and build a Pound Bridges Public Wherf and to erect and build a school house in the said Town and other purposes" This bill became a law. As this is the first law on the statute book of North Carolina relating to schools, that section may be quoted in full:

1 Colonial Records of North Carolina, I, 859

This law is printed in full in the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1895-96, page3 576-578, and in the Report of the American Historical Association for 1895, pages 180-183. For an account of the work of Dr. Bray in establishing libraries in America, see Dr. Bernard C. Steiner's article in the American Historical Review, October, 1893, pages 59-75.

For a full account of these libraries see my Libraries and Literature in North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century, Washington, 1896.

4 Colonial Records of North Carolina, IV, 227, 228, 231, 239, 271.

See my Press in North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century, Brooklyn, 1891.

Col. Rec., IV, 783, 788, 787, 788, 790.

"VI. And be it further Enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That the Commissioners of Edenton may receive Donations and Subscriptions, towards defraying the Expenses of building the School-house in the said Town and apply the same accordingly; and may, in their Names, or in the Names of the Commissioners for the time being, commence Suits or Actions for the Recovery of any Sums given or subscribed to be paid, for the Purpose aforesaid by any Person or Persons whosoever."

It will be noticed that this act is merely permissive. Donations are leisurely made and more leisurely collected, even when threatened with the law as in this case. There is no evidence, and no probability, that this schoolhouse ever got further than the statute book.

In 1749 a bill for an act for founding, erecting, governing, ordering, and visiting a free school at for the inhabitants of this province," was reported to the

The question was again agitated in 1752, and a bill was introduced for the better establishing the church, for erecting of schools," etc., but it met the usual fate of such matters.

In 1754 a liberal proposition came from George Vaughan, a London merchant trading to Lisbon, looking to the foundation of a school in North Carolina. Vaughan wrote Governor Dobbs that his purpose was to donate "one thousand pounds yearly forever" to the propagation of the Gospel among the Indians in and near North Carolina. Of this the governor, council, and assembly were to be perpetual trustees. The fund was to begin after the death of John Sampson, the nephew of Vaughan. This offer was met by a counter proposition from the assembly, that if the gift "was not confined to the Indians only, but made to extend as an academy or seminary for religion and learning to all His Majesty's subjects in North Carolina" they would enlarge the donation "by a reasonable tax on each negro” in the province.

Deeds were accordingly drawn by Vaughan to that effect, but their execution was suspended until the proper law had been enacted by the legislature. A law making an appropriation for the schools had been made already. This had been done in the spring of 1754, and stands as section 12 of an act granting an aid tə the King. This act, made, however, subject to approval by the King, appropriated £6,000, to be issued in bills, for the endowment of a public school for the province. After the passage of the bill the committee on propositions and grievances formally resolved:

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"That under a sense of the many advantages that will arise to the province from giving our youth a liberal education (whether considered in a moral, religious, or political light) a public school or seminary of learning be erected and properly endowed. And that for effecting the same the sum of £6,000 already appropriated for that purpose be properly applied."s

But after the school had been legally established it was found necessary to use the funds for the French and Indian war," and when the borrowed fund had been returned from taxes it was used again for similar purposes. In 1759 it went to support troops in the Cherokee campaign." In 1761 it went to pay the judges and

1 Swann's Revisal of the Laws of North Carolina, 1751, 203-204.

2 Moir mentions a school at Brunswick in 1745. Col. Rec., IV, 755.

Col. Rec., IV, 977, 979, 980, 990, 993, 994. Dr. Smith states on page 22 of his Education in North Carolina that this bill was passed. This is incorrect, for it appears in none of the revisals, not even by title.

4 Col. Rec., IV, 1321, 1322, 1332, 1335, 1337.

Col. Rec., V, 1446-144c.

Davis's Revisal of 1773, p. 158, and Col. Rec., VII, 279.

7 Col. Rec., V., 949.

Col. Rec., V, xxv, 298-209, 547.

Col. Rec., V, 267, 268, 268, 289, 573, 640, 749.

10 Col. Rec., VI, 150, 151, 153, 207, 219.

for war purposes. In 1762 it went to garrison Fort Johnston and Fort Granville, As a result the Vaughan bequest came to naught.

The question of education was frequently recommended to the attention of the legislature by Governor Dobbs during the next ten years. In 1759 and again in 1764, Dobbs asked the Board of Trade to allow the money originally intended for schools to be reissued for that purpose, but the right to issue bills was refused at the instance of British merchants. In 1763 the assembly, through their agent, asked that a part of the fund coming to North Carolina as reimbursement for war expenses be devoted to education, and this was refused.*

Discussion of the subject continued, however, and in December, 1762, Rev. James Reed, of Newbern, preached before the assembly a sermon, “Recommending the establishing public schools for the education of youth.` This sermon was printed at the public expense, and this was, perhaps, the first actual appropriation for education. In 1763 Rev. Alexander Stewart reports a manual-labor school, established by the society of Dr. Bray's associates, for Indians and negroes in Hyde County."

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The one successful school of the period seems to have come from private initiative. In December, 1763, Thomas Tomlinson, an English teacher who had had a school in Cumberland, arrived in Newbern, "well recommended with regard to his abilities, sobriety and good conduct." He opened a school January 1, 1764; got all the pupils he could teach and sent home for an assistant. A subscription was started for a schoolhouse and Rev. James Reed writes in June that he had secured notes for that purpose for more than £200 (£110 sterling). "During my eleven years' residence in this province I have not found any man so well qualified for the care of a school as Mr. Tomlinson. He is not only a good scholar but a man of good conduct, has given great satisfaction to the parents of such children as are under his care and will be of infinite service to the rising generation." The building of the schoolhouse proposed by Reed was authorized by an act passed at the FebruaryMarch session, 1764, and in the following May the leading citizens of Newbern addressed a letter to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, through Governor Tryon, in which they asked that Tomlinson be given a regular salary as a representative of the society, pleading, besides his good qualities, "that there has never been in their province any regular settled schoolmaster. The petition was indorsed by Tryon, who says that Tomlinson was "the only person of repute of that profession in the country,"" and met a favorable response, for the society granted him "an additional salary," amount unknown. 12 In July, 1765, Mr. Reed writes that the building of the schoolhouse went on but slowly for the lack of funds. Tomlinson was expecting an assistant daily and then had 30 pupils at 20s., proclamation, by the quarter, which amounted to £60 sterling per year.' The schoolhouse was still unfinished in 1766, when the matter was taken up by an act "for establishing a schoolhouse in the town of Newbern." The act, after reciting that "a number of well-disposed persons, taking into consideration the great necessity of having a proper school or public seminary of learning estab

1 Col. Rec., VI, 657, 658, 661, 686, 691.

2 Col. Rec., VI, 831.

Col. Rec., VI, 5, 1035–1037.

4 Col. Rec., VI, 1006.

5 Col. Rec., VI, 955.

Col. Rec., VI, 995-996.

In 1767-68 James McCartney, a native of Ireland, was an assistant in this school.
Col. Rec., VI., 1048.

Col. Rec., VI, 1105, 1111, 1113, etc.

10 Col. Rec., VII, 35-36.

11 Col. Rec., VII, 104.

12 Col. Rec., VII, 458.

13 Col. Rec., VII, 98, 154, 241.

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lished, whereby the rising generation may be brought up and instructed in the principles of the Christian religion and fitted for the several offices and purposes of life, have at great expense erected and built in the town of Newbern a convenient house for the purpose aforesaid; and being desirous that the same may be established by law on a permanent footing, so as to answer the good purposes by the said persons intended," enacted that the contributors to the schoolhouse fund should choose out of their own number eleven persons to be trustees, who were by this act chartered as the Incorporated Society for Promoting and Establishing the Public School in Newbern, and given the powers usual to such bodies. No person was to be admitted master of the school who was not of the Church of England and licensed by the governor. The trustees were to take the oaths to the Government, subscribe the test, and then take a special oath "to execute and discharge the several powers and authorities" conferred by the act. Elaborate provisions were made for the control and direction of the trustees, and as the contributors were "desirous that the benefits arising from said school may be as extensive as possible, and that the poor who may be unable to educate their children there may enjoy the benefits thereof," a duty of 1 penny per gallon was to be levied on all rum and other spirituous liquors imported into Neuse River for seven years. This was to be used in educating ten poor children. The master was to have a salary of £20 per year "toward enabling him to keep an assistant."

This law has been given in detail, because it is practically the first law passed in the province for the encouragement of public education.

A further effort was made to aid the school by the legislature of 1768, which passed an act "for declaring certain lots in the town of Newbern, taken up by the trustees for promoting the public school in the said town, saved and improved according to law; and to empower the said trustees to collect the subscriptions due to the said school. This act was repealed by the King in council in 1770, on the ground that the act set aside the statute of limitations.3

But it appears that those interested in the school were not at all disposed to let the English Government thwart them by repealing this legislation on the school, for in 1773 the legislature passed a supplementary act in which it was provided that the four lots contiguous to the lot on which the school society had erected “a large and convenient building for the use and accommodation of the master and scholars of said school" should be deemed as saved and improved lots, according to the terms of the act in force.1

In 1767 and 1768 efforts were made to establish by legislative authority a similar school in Edenton. These bills failed because the assembly refused to require that the teachers should be members of the Church of England, in accord with the instructions to the governor and the terms of the schism act."

The opponents of the church schools idea yielded finally, however, and the Edenton Academy was chartered in 1770-71, under an act "for vesting the schoolhouse in Edenton in trustees." The terms of its charter and the objects of the school were in all essentials like those for the Newbern Academy. The trustees had power to receive voluntary subscriptions, and "no person shall be admitted to be master of the said school but who is of the Established Church of England." As we have already seen, the master and teachers of the public school in New

96

1 See Col. Rec., VII, 303, 305, 309, 310, etc., and the act in Davis's Revisal of 1773, 359–361. This act repealed the act of 1764.

2 Davis's Revisal of 1773, 450.

3 Col. Rec., VIII, 266, 276–277, 616.

4 Davis's Revisal of 1773, 552. In 1772 a quarrel arose between Tomlinson and the trustees, and he was dismissed. Reed takes his part and suggests the dissolution of the Incorporated Society. See Colonial Records, IX.

"Col. Rec., VII, 561, 562, 563, 586, 587, 588, 589, 591, 598, 600, 632-633. See also same, 901, 904, 909, 921, 922, 942-943, 947, 948, 953, 954, 970, 978, and VIII, 6.

Davis's Revisal of 1773, 478-479.

bern were also required to be of the Church of England, in accordance with the provisions of the schism act, which was enforced in North Carolina from 1730 to 1773, so far as the Government was able. Under this act no one, under penalty of three months' imprisonment, could keep either a public or a private school, nor could act as tutor or usher, unless he had obtained a license from the Bishop of London, had engaged to conform to the Anglican liturgy, and had received the sacrament in some Anglican church within the year. To prevent occasional conformity it was provided that a teacher so qualified who attended any other form of worship was to suffer the full term of imprisonment and to be forever incapacitated from acting as tutor or schoolmaster. This requirement handicapped the dissenters by throttling their schools, and consequently did great harm to learning. The power of the Established Church was felt mainly in the eastern half of the colony. The result was that there were few private schools at the time of the Revolution.

IV. PRIVATE INCORPORATED ACADEMIES, 1760-1825.

The western part of the Province of North Carolina-the western half of the present State-was occupied, speaking very broadly, by races differing from those of the eastern counties. The latter were settled mostly by immigrants from the old country and from Virginia who moved farther to the south in search of better lands. These immigrants were mostly of English extraction, and this was the general character of the population until the end of the proprietary government in 1728.

About 1736 the Scotch and Scotch-Irish immigrations began. One stream came in by way of Charleston, S. C., another by way of Cape Fear River, while a third came southward from Pennsylvania. These streams met and commingled in the Piedmont region of the present State. They clung more closely together than earlier settlers had done, and "almost invariably as soon as a neighborhood was settled preparations were made for the preaching of the gospel by a regular stated pastor, and wherever a pastor was located, in that congregation there was a classical school, as in Sugar Creek, Poplar Tent, Center, Bethany, Buffalo, Thyatira, Grove, Wilmington, and the churches occupied by Pattillo in Granville and Orange."

Another class of settlers who contributed no little to the intellectual advancement of middle and western North Carolina were the Germans, who came overland from Pennsylvania, and in religion were divided into Moravian. Lutheran, and Reformed bodies, but there was harmony between these parts, and in matters of education they were one. In this migration, which began as early as 1745, the Moravians were among the leaders. They appeared in 1753. The ensuing southward movement lasted for a generation, and in 1785 there were 15,000 Pennsylvania Germans in North Carolina. These immigrants were careful to set up churches and schools on arrival, and if there were no teachers among them they sent to Germany for such. A number of these schools were taught in the German language. It is safe to say that during the second half of the eighteenth century no class of the population of North Carolina was more intelligent than this German element.4

Still another class which added no little to the strength of the province in morals and otherwise were the Quakers. They began coming to central North Carolina, principally from Pennsylvania, as early as 1743, and kept it up until the close of the Revolution, but in educational matters they do not occupy as high a place as the German churches or the Presbyterians."

1 On the provisions of the schism act, see my Church and State in North Carolina, ch. 3.

2 Foote's Sketches, p. 546.

3 Col. Rec., VIII, 728.

4 See Col. Rec., VIII, 507, 631, 731, 732, 733, 739, 748, 749, 751, 760, 761, 762, 763, 768.

See my Southern Quakers and Slavery.